


Glitch

by Kiyaar



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 616, Angst, Ficlet, M/M, Multiverse, Suicide, mcu - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-11-18 07:50:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar
Summary: “Call me Tony,” the other Tony says.





	Glitch

This man is achingly familiar. 

Except he’s quiet, subdued, Steve might even call it bashful if every encounter for the last four years of his life since moving into the Tower hadn’t been indelibly lain into the framework of his memory, if he weren’t so certain that a smirk were going to break out on that face any moment.

The man doesn’t ask for anything, not water, not a pad of paper, not the date or the year or the key to the handcuffs, fuckface, which is a thing he should be saying. 

It’s deeply unsettling. Steve is unnerved. 

“Do you want me to take this? He isn’t talking.” Nat had said, like she said it about Bucky when they finally found him, and she was right to say it then. He isn’t sure he was right to say no, not when this – man is sitting across from him, bloody and wide-eyed and everything is the same except for the eyes. 

“Mr. Stark,” Steve says, again, and how can his tongue even manage the syllables? It’s so foreign, it goes against every instinct he has. Mr. Stark, he said once, and it was natural, when they didn’t know the other and vitriol was the only language they knew how to speak. 

“Tony,” the facsimile of Tony replies, for the first time. 

He hasn’t stopped staring at Steve since Steve walked into the interrogation room. 

“Excuse me?” Steve says, because his voice is Tony’s voice. 

“Call me Tony,” the other Tony says. 

Steve only recognizes the plea in it because he knows his own Tony. Intimately. He knows every flavor of dour and manic and bitter and desperate. 

This Tony is desperate. 

“Why are you here, Mr. Stark?” Steve asks, again. 

This Tony’s face flinches for a fraction of a second before it’s blank again. He shrugs. “Seemed like the thing to do.” 

“You don’t require medical attention,” Steve says. “And it’s not your blood.” He holds the test vial up, then tosses it onto the file folder that’s filled with nothing useful. 

He shrugs again. “Perils of the occupation.”  


“What occupation?"

The Tony across the table smiles a broken smile. “Traitor.” 

Steve sighs and crosses his legs. 

Other Tony’s lips tighten into a pained smile at that. 

“Something amusing?” Steve asks. He looks at his watch. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes he’s been in here watching Tony’s – clone sit there like a sociopath. 

“Never,” other Tony says. “You don’t have to worry about subterfuge from me, Cap.” 

Something bitter twists in his words, and Steve’s stomach feels sour. His Tony never calls him Cap. Not for years, not since they got that out of their systems. They use gentler words now. Making up for lost time, Tony says, like Tony is responsible for making up all of it on his own. 

“So you know who I am.” 

Other-Tony’s face is disturbingly blank. 

“You could say.” 

“Then say it,” Steve snaps. 

Other-Tony smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his blue eyes, something tired and burdened and Steve doesn’t want to look at him anymore. 

He doesn’t care that Natasha and Sam and Clint are watching, doesn’t care that Tony is on his way, somewhere, doesn’t touch the phone in his pocket that’s been vibrating, he wants to know why, wants to know how this worn version of Tony made its way into their universe, wants to snap his bones and scream until he tells him why. 

“You’re different,” Tony says, clenching his jaw, grinding his teeth. “You’re.” 

“You have a Steve Rogers in your universe?” 

Tony looks at the ceiling. “No,” Tony says, jutting his chin out. 

“Ok,” Steve says, because he’s done. Because he’s shown his hand, maybe, and it’s far too much of a hand to show. “Natasha can have you. In Detention. In a real interrogation room. Do you have one of her in your universe? Up.” 

Other-Tony shuffles quietly, obediently up, his hands chained awkwardly to his feet. He’s in business casual (no jacket), no arc reactor poking through the gap in his tailored shirt. Steve can see his collarbone. He’s thin, thinner than his Tony. His temples are shot through with silver. He braces both hands on the table as he stands. It’s not an act. Fragile, Steve thinks, and aches for his own Tony, because he can’t stand to be around this other one, this shadow of his Tony brimming with life.

There is a ring on his finger, Steve notices, and he flinches, bodily, as he’s hustling Tony through the cell door. 

He freezes, even though he shouldn’t, even though the interrogation is over, even though his head is firmly Not In The Game. He should have – but his hands were under the table, he couldn’t have known, but he should have, and he needs to go and his traitorous legs won’t move - 

“Are you married?” He hears himself saying, and Natasha is glaring at him and she already has her arm around other-Tony’s, ready to lead him to bleaker rooms and harsher tactics than Steve is able to use on someone with Tony’s face. 

Tony looks, for what seems like forever, at Steve’s face. And Steve can’t look away – can’t help but memorize his eyes, the irises that are so bright and clear and deep even though the color is wrong. They’re just like his Tony’s; Steve could look all day, he even has the same green flecks that his brown-eyed Tony has.

Tony smiles like he doesn’t quite believe he’ll ever smile again. 

“Widower,” he says, and then he’s leaning forward and Natasha’s mouth is making a sound and Steve’s pistol is out of its holster and in Tony’s hand and pointed at Tony’s brain and Tony says-

“Bye, Steve.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I continue to archive old ficlets from tumblr! I am [kiyaar](kiyaar.tumblr.com) on tumblr! and this is a [rebloggable post](http://kiyaar.tumblr.com/post/107087219633/stevetony-alternate-or-stevetony-skate) (old) that you can reblog.


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